


the last thought of David Kentley

by slavetohiscat



Category: Rope (1948)
Genre: Aestheticism, Gen, Murder, the philosophy of homosexuality, Übermensch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8847754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavetohiscat/pseuds/slavetohiscat
Summary: From the point of view of David Kentley, the body in the Cassone chest, as he surveys his two old school friends in the final moments of his life.
  Pity we couldn't have done it with the curtains open in the bright sunlight. Ah well, we can't have everything.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/gifts).



> Merry Yule to you, babel! I hope you really meant it when you said I couldn't go too dark for you...
> 
> Rewatching _Rope_ it really hit me how gloriously the film manages to completely avoid being about what it is actually about!

Why, it is just like old times: Phillip would play the waltz of the term on the piano (there was always one new piece of music per term—enjoyable at first, as Phillip learned each new section and strung the whole together, by the end of the year we all knew the damned thing quite backwards) while Brandon would mix drinks (which at prep school amounted to nothing more than ginger beer or perhaps a sherbet water, but later at Harvard was a more serious affair as Brandon and Phillip (and Kenneth too for that matter) were all particularly heavy drinkers) while we waited for the guests of honour to arrive: sometimes it was Mr Cadelle taking the trip up from Somerville to visit the Philosophy Library—and Brandon too, I always suspected (they used to spend hours and hours together in Mr Cadelle's office at school); sometimes my lovely Janet was there, she was Brandon's girlfriend at the time, for a while; sometimes Phillip would bring an awkward musician friend from the department—why they were always awkward is beyond me, but they were unfailingly socially inept; sometimes it was just the four of us—these were always my favourite occasions—I think _intellectual_ conversation always works best in threes, and Brandon, bless him, doesn’t count as a participant in this arena; oh and how we would talk: pure mathematics, when they would let me; philosophy, when they wouldn’t; girls, so long as Janet wasn't there (another reason to prefer a smaller company—Brandon’s advice in affairs of the heart was always impeccable, and a field in which the rest of us did not excel: we lacked his confidence in his own charisma, for one thing, but he was always able to conjure a certain distance from the subject which I've never seen since); but, whatever the topic, we wiled away many happy, drunken hours in Brandon’s suite of rooms—he was, and is now, a man of ceremonial bent, prone to improvising Occasions (capitalised, _decadentissimo_ ) out of the most mundane of events, and this quality was always inherent in him, even before he went to Italy and came back with a ferry’s worth of antique chests stuffed full of lightweight literature in dirty-yellow journals and lavishly embossed leather volumes (he joked that books with drab covers almost certainly contained drab words; I joked that books with bright colours almost certainly contained words written for people attracted to shiny things); I'm sure this evening will be an Occasion, in the true Brandonesque sense: he tells me with bright eyes that Mr. Cadelle is coming, and Brandon never did get over his schoolboy infatuation for the man… nor of me, for that matter: I can always tell when he’s thinking about it because he stares at my lips, just as he did all through detention the day after Mr. Cadelle found us taking it in turns to pretend to be the woman (in his role as our house master, I think he understood what was going on far clearer than I did at the time (as for what Brandon knew at that age, I won’t waste my time guessing)); but Phillip is also a host of this evening, and he prefers to follow the score rather than improvise his own embellishments: Occasions do not emerge around him, they are arranged—and the fruits of Phillip’s battle planning are happily on display at tonight’s soirée: Brandon has been furnished with a tray of brand-new high balls for our drinks, the silver on the dining table looks too perfect for Mrs Wilson to have laid it out without assistance (surreptitious or otherwise) and the poor boy told me exactly what food he had ordered for us later, or started to anyway, before Brandon interrupted him; yes, all signs point to tonight being a big Occasion for my two old friends, and like all the best of Brandon’s Occasions, there doesn’t need to be an external reason why one might take place—in fact, he prefers it when there isn’t (you wonder how he would go about planning his own wedding—perhaps the weight of obligation to be lavish would quite take the wind out of his sails? (not that I imagine he will be getting married any time soon: when I assured him my interest in Janet was genuine he was quite taken aback, and flung himself back into Phillip’s arms at the earliest juncture he could manage without looking indecorous (silly, loyal Phillip—he waited for Brandon so long))) which makes me wonder what the pair of them might accomplish if they would finally decide to _do_ something; before Italy, Brandon had always maintained he would be President one day, and it never occurred to any of us to disbelieve him… but I digress—I suppose Brandon would approve of digression at his parties, but what I mean to remember is that it is just like old times tonight: Phillip is playing a waltz on the piano—I haven’t heard this one before, while Brandon pours out drinks—whiskey, it was always his favourite—and soon Mr. Cadelle will arrive, ready to be underwhelmed by whatever eldritch philosophical conundrum Brandon has dreamed up for him this time; and Janet too—I shall have the chance to make up to her for the silly argument we had last week (though I really think it is too much of her to return my letters unopened); and Kenneth too for that matter, ever the afterthought; and here's Brandon now with my whiskey (it's a rather bitter one … I never did much like the stuff), with which I suppose I should propose a toast … albeit a sleepy one for so early in the evening… “To art?" Phillip suggests … “No, no, to our hosts this evening," etiquette demands I insist … though my voice… slurs unexpectedly as Brandon smiles widely … and I remember … the first time I saw him, school uniform pristine … old times … and how could I have know then that this would be the man to introduce me to my future wif…


End file.
